They are building the Carlsbad Desalination Project, which will convert as much as 56 million gallons of seawater each day into drinking water for San Diego County residents. The project, with a price tag of $1 billion, is emerging from the sand like an industrial miracle. In California’s highly regulated coastal zone, it took nearly 15 years to move from concept to construction, surviving 14 legal challenges along the way.

The desalination plant is being built by Poseidon Water, a private company, and will be paid for in large part by rate increases on San Diego County water customers.

Reverse-osmosis desalination was invented in California in the 1950s. But other nations with fewer natural freshwater supplies – Israel, Australia, Saudi Arabia and others – embraced the technology first and built dozens of projects over the past few decades. When the Carlsbad plant begins operating in 2016, it will be the largest desalination project ever built in the Americas. Desalination on this scale is so new, said MacLaggan, that Carlsbad will be operated initially by an Israeli subcontractor, which will help train a staff of California workers.

The eyes of a thirsty state are trained on this project: It is a crucial test for an industry eager to expand in California, where residents are famously protective of their coastline and also accustomed to relatively cheap water. In short, the Carlsbad project is challenging California’s status quo while also offering the tantalizing prospect of relief from drought.

“This plant can’t come online fast enough,” said Bob Yamada, water resources manager at the San Diego County Water Authority, which serves 3.1 million people and is buying all of the plant’s freshwater production. “It’s droughtproof. That’s one of the most important attributes. It will be the most reliable water source we have.”

The water authority’s 30-year contract with Poseidon illustrates both the promise and peril of this water source. San Diego County agreed to pay for 48,000 acre-feet of water from the plant every year – whether it needs the water or not – to ensure a guaranteed supply. The water will cost $2,257 per acre-foot, about double the price of the authority’s most expensive current supply, which is water imported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta more than 400 miles away.

Under this so-called “take-or-pay” contract, the water authority can purchase an additional 8,000 acre-feet each year if necessary, which reduces the price slightly, to about $2,000 per acre-foot.

One acre-foot is enough to serve two average homes for a year. At a total output of 56,000 acre-feet, the plant will meet 7 percent of San Diego County’s annual water demand.

Another way to look at it, said Conner Everts, co-chair of the Desal Response Group, a coalition of conservation groups critical of desalination, is that the Carlsbad project puts a $108 million burden on San Diego County water ratepayers every year, drought or not.

“The primary driver of the cost of imported water is the same as desalination: It’s the price of electricity,” said Kevin Wattier, general manager of the Long Beach Water Department. “It’s just way more expensive than imported water, and we have other options we would consider before that, such as recycled water or groundwater storage.”

Other communities have also recently dropped desalination projects. The city of Santa Cruz, with no imported water to shore up its supplies, rejected desalination after an uproar from residents concerned about the cost and environmental risks. Since then, residents have cut their water consumption to one of the lowest levels in the state – 62 gallons per person per day – and succeeded in prolonging local reservoir storage.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article3017597.html